o looked with much surprise at what her
sister was doing; "what are you doing? You cannot be going out now in
the snow?"

8. "Do not make a noise," said Mercy. "You know that mother is not
well, and perhaps she is just dropping off to sleep. I cannot bear to
leave him freezing out there all night,--Christmas Eve and all!

[Illustration: OUT IN THE COLD.]

9. "I could not creep under the warm blanket and forget him. No one
will see him but us, for only our window looks this way. So I am just
going to run out and get the shed open for him."

10. "Oh, sister, you will be so cold! Cannot you ask father to go?"

"Oh, you heard him say that he had pains in all his bones. Now be a
good child, Nelly, and get quick into bed. I shall soon be back."

11. With these words Mercy tied on a great scarf which was once her
father's round her neck, crept down stairs without making the least
noise, and out at the back door.

12. Once out of shelter of the house, it was, as she thought with a
shiver, "a bitter night." The snow was no longer falling, but a keen
wind swept over the white face of the earth and stirred up the snow.

13. It piled heaps of it up into strange shapes. The frost was so hard
that the feet of the child did not sink into it as she ran along.

14. Very soon she reached the shed, outside of which the donkey stood,
a picture of patient despair. She plunged through a great heap of
drifted snow and reached its side. She patted his rough coat.

15. "Oh, Brownie," she cried, "how cold you are! I must get this door
open for you somehow." She pulled it, she jerked it, she kicked it, she
shook down showers of snow on herself, and that was all.

16. It was in vain to try. It was frozen hard, and do what she would,
she could not stir it an inch. It was hopeless. "Oh, what can I do for
you, Brownie?" she thought, ready to cry with grief.

17. "I do so wish you were not so big, and I could take you up the
stairs into our bed-room!" And Mercy half laughed at the idea of taking
the donkey to bed with her.

18. She gave one last, hard hit and a rattle at the unkind door. "I
cannot get it open, Brownie, and I must go home again. It will not do
you any good if I stay out here with you."

19. Slowly the child moved away. If it had seemed cold when she first
came out, it seemed ten times colder now. And she saw the sad look
which the poor beast cast after her when she left him. Mercy could not
forget it.

*